Midnight in Austin
Nov. 12th, 2025 07:36 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
canyonwalkerTexas Trip log #3
Residence Inn · Wed, 12 Nov 2025. 12:05am.
My Southwest Airlines flight to Austin not only left on time this evening, it arrived early. "Well, we got you to Texas 15 minutes early," the purser quipped over the speakers. "When we're late next time we'll call it even." See, even Southwest employees know their airline has a reputation for arriving late. 🤣
It's not as simple as, "We arrived early, woohoo!" though. The system is not set up to handle flights arriving early. As is frequently the case with an early arrival, our flight had to sit on the tarmac waiting for our gate to open up. You see, in the name of efficiency the airline figures out how to use the fewest gates possible, which generally means a gate doesn't open up until 2 minutes before your flight is supposed to land. So all of our 15 minutes of earliness was consumed just sitting there, 300 feet short of the gate.
Since I'd canceled my car reservation when my travel plans changed at 41,000' I thought I'd save a bit of time getting to the hotel by hopping in an Uber instead of walking all the way to the car rental depot. Oops, no, the designated spot for ride-share pickups is in the same far parking structure as the rental cars.
Well, one advantage of taking an Uber remained not having to drive. It was going on midnight local time as we whisked across uncrowded highways around Austin. Though it was only 10:45pm for me, on California time, it was still late by my usual schedule. I thought I might nap a bit on the flight. Strangely, I didn't. I was wide awake the whole dang time. And now I was struggling not to nod off.
The Residence Inn was quiet when I arrived. Despite rates being high when I booked the hotel seem to have low occupancy. I checked in, got my keys, and went upstairs to my room. To my chagrin I found that I was in an "armpit" room— wedged on an inside corner of the building, where there was no window near the bed and only a small window near the desk that looked straight into a hallway window 5' away. It's like they assigned me the worst room in the hotel. So much for Lifetime Titanium status. Not only don't I get an upgrade, even a trivial one, I pretty much get a downgrade. And I'm paying $200++ a night for this!
I called down to the front desk to complain about the room with its missing window. "Do you have anything better you can put me in?" The desk agent tap-tapped on his computer and asked me to meet him at the elevator for new keys. "It's a one-bedroom suite," he informed me. Well, it's the same size as the other room, just there's a wall in the middle. 🙄 But at least it has 2 windows... which it turns out will be really important tomorrow when I'm trying to get work done, because the lighting in here sucks!
Residence Inn · Wed, 12 Nov 2025. 12:05am.
My Southwest Airlines flight to Austin not only left on time this evening, it arrived early. "Well, we got you to Texas 15 minutes early," the purser quipped over the speakers. "When we're late next time we'll call it even." See, even Southwest employees know their airline has a reputation for arriving late. 🤣
It's not as simple as, "We arrived early, woohoo!" though. The system is not set up to handle flights arriving early. As is frequently the case with an early arrival, our flight had to sit on the tarmac waiting for our gate to open up. You see, in the name of efficiency the airline figures out how to use the fewest gates possible, which generally means a gate doesn't open up until 2 minutes before your flight is supposed to land. So all of our 15 minutes of earliness was consumed just sitting there, 300 feet short of the gate.
Since I'd canceled my car reservation when my travel plans changed at 41,000' I thought I'd save a bit of time getting to the hotel by hopping in an Uber instead of walking all the way to the car rental depot. Oops, no, the designated spot for ride-share pickups is in the same far parking structure as the rental cars.
Well, one advantage of taking an Uber remained not having to drive. It was going on midnight local time as we whisked across uncrowded highways around Austin. Though it was only 10:45pm for me, on California time, it was still late by my usual schedule. I thought I might nap a bit on the flight. Strangely, I didn't. I was wide awake the whole dang time. And now I was struggling not to nod off.
The Residence Inn was quiet when I arrived. Despite rates being high when I booked the hotel seem to have low occupancy. I checked in, got my keys, and went upstairs to my room. To my chagrin I found that I was in an "armpit" room— wedged on an inside corner of the building, where there was no window near the bed and only a small window near the desk that looked straight into a hallway window 5' away. It's like they assigned me the worst room in the hotel. So much for Lifetime Titanium status. Not only don't I get an upgrade, even a trivial one, I pretty much get a downgrade. And I'm paying $200++ a night for this!
I called down to the front desk to complain about the room with its missing window. "Do you have anything better you can put me in?" The desk agent tap-tapped on his computer and asked me to meet him at the elevator for new keys. "It's a one-bedroom suite," he informed me. Well, it's the same size as the other room, just there's a wall in the middle. 🙄 But at least it has 2 windows... which it turns out will be really important tomorrow when I'm trying to get work done, because the lighting in here sucks!
